A friend of mine that lives in my building was organizing a trip to Beijing. She invited me to go and of course, I hesitated. I was a bit “traveled out” and didn’t want to leave the tight ship that I run. It just so happened that this friend and the organizer of the trip is from Taiwan and speaks Chinese. Jim told me I just had to go; it was the chance of a life time. (I find we say that a lot to each other these days.) With his optimistic encouragement, I took a deep breath, told her I was “in” and then walked away with “buyers remorse” (a trait all of my sisters and I have) wondering why in the world I had committed myself to this trip.Day 1:
The night we arrived, we went for Peking Duck (a famous Chinese dish of duck roasted in an open flame). In our search for the restaurant where we had reservations, we turned off down a dirt road, a kind of side alley. The uneven road sloped this way and that and the neighborhood consisted of small cinder block houses with tin roofs. It was dirty and reminded me of the time I had spent in the Dominican Republic. Eventually, I noticed spray painted stick figured pictures of ducks on one of the cinder block walls. I gulped and winced. We certainly weren't planning on eating here??? I noticed a puddle of “something” on the ground, that couldn
’t possibly be water. "Ew", I thought to myself, wondering how I was going to get out of this hole. I’d been in some pretty scary places in my life and I wasn’t about to eat here. I just happened to say that out loud and every one in my group seemed to be oblivious to our surroundings. They completely ignored me and walked in. I admit, I felt a bit uncomfortable. 
Yes, I ended up eating there. Believe me, I ate very cautiously. Surprisingly, no one got sick and the place was full of foreigners. Posted all over the particle board walls, kind of like make shift wall paper, were pictures of famous people who had eaten there. Does it surprise anyone that Al Gore’s picture was there?
**All of my pictures of China are from Mindi Morris, a friend and fellow traveler. Thank you Mindi!
